Who's Sorry Now?

by Jill Churchill

  The only other decision involved was which room would suit him, and it was decided that it would probably be the one across the hallway from Mrs. Tarkington's. There was a connected bath on one side, and a closet on the other side of that room. And nobody would be bothered by a phone ringing on the second floor from a room next door.

  The cost of the room would be decided by Mr. Prinney, in private consultation with Lily and Robert when they found out about Howard's luncheon plans.

  Robert was pleased. Aside from Mr. Prinney, he was the only man who lived at Grace and Favor. And as much as he respected and liked Mr. Prinney, they were from different generations and didn't have a lot in common. The estate decisions that needed to be made rested mostly with Lily, who understood them far better than Robert did. It would be swell to have another man near his own age living with them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thursday, April 20

  THE NEXT MORNING, Robert went to the chief of police's office in town and told Howard he'd been unanimously approved to live at Grace and Favor.

  “That's swell," Walker said. "I have to admit that I've already packed most of my clothes," he said with a grin.

  “Come up first and see the room we've assigned you and make sure you like it.”

  They took both their cars, and Robert led Howard up the stairs and opened the door to the room the residents had decided might suit their newest boarder. As Howard walked in he said, "There's lots of light from those windows and it's a bigger room than the two rooms I had at the boardinghouse."

  “Sorry it's not a river view," Robert said.

  “I've lived right by the river and don't need to see it again. It stinks even more than the boardinghouse."

  “Here's the bathroom," Robert said, opening a door.

  Howard looked more closely and said, "My own bathroom? I don't have to share it?" He grinned at Robert. "Worth the price and more. I've been sharing a bathroom with three other men for too long. What's more, one of them must have read a whole magazine every time he was in there. Speaking of price, what's it going to cost me?”

  Robert gave him the price Mrs. Tarkington paid less two dollars. "She has the same sort of space, and a private bath. She gets breakfast, a packed lunch, and dinner. We're charging you a little less than we charge Mrs. Tarkington. She has a river view and likes it and is willing to pay for it."

  “It's only two dollars more than what I'm paying now and well worth it. Do I have to pack my own lunch though? I like eating at Mabel's. It's closer to my office."

  “No, Mrs. Prinney packs the lunches. But if you prefer to stay in town at lunchtime, we can take another dollar off. Oh, I haven't shown you the closet yet." Robert opened the double doors. The closet was enormous and flanked the main room on the other side.

  “That's impressive," Howard said. Almost as big as the second room at the boardinghouse where my office is. By the way, I've talked to the telephone people. They can run a line up here just like Mr. Prinney has for his office in town. And I can have two phones. One in this room and one in the front hall."

  “Good idea. If we were all at dinner, you probably wouldn't hear it if it was ringing in your room. Ready to move in?"

  “I won't be ready until the phone upstairs and in the hall is installed. The guy said he could do it tomorrow. Will you or Lily be around to show him where they go?"

  “We'll both be here. And everybody is looking forward to having you live here."

  “So am I," Howard said, shaking Robert's hand.

  On Friday, Robert was a bit overeager to get Howard situated. Once the phone was scheduled to be installed the next morning, Robert insisted on helping Howard to haul most of his belongings at the boardinghouse to Grace and Favor. He insisted that the Duesie was much bigger than the chief's police car and they could get everything moved in one trip rather than three.

  “You're being very kind, but I don't really need all this help."

  “But I'm here and willing to cart boxes," Robert said. They piled three large boxes into the big automobile that was the love of Robert's life, and headed up the hill.

  Robert helped carry the boxes. Finally, everything was in Howard's new room.

  Howard said, "Robert, you've been really helpful, but I'm not going to let you unpack for me. I'm going to take my time to figure out what should go where—and it would drive you mad the way I'm probably going to dither about for several days. Besides that, tomorrow I have to take away those fIles from the last case to be stored safely.”

  Howard wandered to the big window in the main room again, and happened to look down. "What's wrong with those shrubs?" he asked.

  Robert joined him and looked where Walker was pointing. "They look as if they're diseased, don't they? Before the Harbinger boys start building the post office–style boxes, maybe they'd dig them up. If they have a disease it could spread to all the shrubs. The place would look naked without greenery around the first floor. Okay, I'm leaving you to it. I won't interfere anymore.

  “It might be bagworms," Howard said. "Those are—”

  Robert put his hands over his ears. "Oh, please don't describe them to me. The name alone makes me dizzy."

  “Robert, you're such a sissy," Walker said with a laugh. "Now just go away, please.”

  Saturday morning, Lester Johnson, the man from the telephone exchange, arrived early. Robert was still dawdling over breakfast. As little as he wanted to hear about nature, let alone something called bagworms, he liked seeing how other people did their jobs. Not that he intended to learn how to replace them. He simply found it interesting to watch. He was showing Lester Johnson to Howard's room, and made a suggestion about where the phone ought to go. The man didn't appear to care about Robert's opinion.

  “Leave it to me. I need to do some measurements between this room and the front hall. They appear to be pretty close to vertical. You know, when I had to go upstairs in Chief Walker's boardinghouse to install his phone, I nearly gagged at the smell. I'm sure he'll be happier here.”

  Robert walked down the stairs behind Johnson. More measuring. More figuring with a blunt pencil in a shabby notebook. "Yes, it's going to work out fine. I don't need anymore help, sir.”

  Robert was miffed. He wanted to follow him around and see what he did. But he was clearly unwelcome to do so.

  An hour later, Lester Johnson hunted down Robert and said, "Want to watch?"

  “Sure, I do."

  “You go upstairs and see if the phone there works. I'll stay here to see if it rings here.”

  Robert hot-footed it upstairs, just in time to hear the second ring. "Hi, Letty," Robert said to the girl at the exchange. "Connect me to the chief of police, if he's back from his errand, then hang up." When he connected, he heard the click as Letty pulled out her plug.

  “Hi, Howard. It's Robert. I'm on your upstairs telephone. And Lester Johnson is presumably on the one in the downstairs hall.”

  There was a snort from the repairman. "Chief, both of them work. You want the other one at the boardinghouse disabled today?”

  There was another click and the repairman said, "Letty, we all heard that. This is Lester Johnson. You and I both work for the same outfit, see? If you do this to me again, I'll report you to him."

  “Yes, si—" The click off was so fast she missed the last letter of the word.

  Howard and Robert were both laughing. Howard said, "Lester, you're a braver man than I am."

  “You want the boardinghouse line shut down now, Chief?"

  “If you would. I'm pleased this worked," he said. "Drop by the jail when you're finished so I can pay you for your work. Good-bye, Robert.”

  Chief Walker walked over to the boardinghouse. He said to the woman who owned it, "I'm just picking up the last of my belongings. The telephone gentleman will be here in a few minutes to cut off my connection. He'll do it from outside the building and won't bother you."

  “Good for you," she said with bitter sarcasm. "What do you think I'm going to do w
ith these two rooms you've been renting? With a door between them? Nobody else will be able to afford two rooms."

  “Then put a lock on the door," Howard said bluntly. "I only have one more drawer to empty. Good luck, miss.”

  He grinned all the way upstairs, removed his shaving materials, a hairbrush and comb, and put everything in a paper bag.

  There was no sign of the owner or any of the other boarders when he came back down. He went back to his small office at the jail to wait for Lester Johnson. When he'd thanked him again and paid him, he headed up the hill to Grace and Favor.

  Robert was in the kitchen, chatting with Mrs. Prinney about how nice it was going to be to have Howard living at Grace and Favor. Howard came in and asked Mrs.

  Prinney if he could hang his uniform and some of his other clothes on the drying line outside.

  “Yes, that's perfectly all right. But why?"

  “To get the smell of cabbage and cheap sausage out of them. Then I'm taking a shower later to get the smell out of my hair," he said with a grin.

  “You don't like cabbage and sausage?" Mrs. Prinney asked. "I'll remember that."

  “No, I've eaten yours here before and it's much better and doesn't stink up the whole house. I didn't mean to insult your cooking. You're the best cook I've ever known, including my own grandmother.”

  Saturday night, dinner was a gala event. Everyone dressed up as a welcome to their new boarder. Howard wore his best suit, which had been hung outside and pressed and brushed up by Mimi. Phoebe and Mrs. Tarkington wore their best dresses and little hats that looked almost like tiaras.

  Mrs. Prinney had shed her apron and had stuffed herself into her tightest corset. Robert wore his old tux. It wasn't as nice as before, but in dim light it looked fairly good. Especially since it had a blinding white starched collar that almost glowed. He wore the gold watch his father had given him when he graduated from the private high school he'd attended.

  Even Lily, who almost never wore jewelry, wore her late mother's diamond and sapphire earrings and the matching ring. She'd given away most of her best frocks because she'd lost so much weight during the two years of horror after the stock market crashed. Two whole years in a dirty tenement apartment on the fifth floor of a cold-water flat in New York City. But she'd kept three of her favorite dresses and had taken one—a light coral–colored floor-length silk—to the new tailor in town. In a matter of two hours he'd fixed it so it fit perfectly.

  Mrs. Prinney's best china graced the table along with her solid silver place settings. The napkins were pure white linen. Candles glowed and there were cut-glass wineglasses to serve two fine old dusty bottles Robert had found in the wine cellar. Unfortunately, the smaller bottle had gone a bit off, but the diners finished off the large bottle. The meal was roasted pork with a very good gravy, two salads, fresh young peas, and scalloped potatoes.

  After a floating island—dessert—they all stood and toasted the new boarder.

  “This isn't an every night sort of meal, is it?" Howard asked.

  He stood up, holding his glass, and toasted everyone else. "The nicest people I know all at the same table. I'm the luckiest man alive.”

  Robert glanced at Lily, who was threatening to tear up again. In fact, Robert himself was close to doing so as well. Tt had been a wonderful evening.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Monday, April 24

  AS A NEW WEEK STARTED, nobody but Lily and Robert were at Grace and Favor. The Harbinger boys were supposed to cut out the diseased bushes, but had to beg off until later in the day because Miss Twibell at the nursing home nearby wanted the dumbwaiter rails regreased. They were catching near the basement. The dumbwaiter had been Robert's idea and he was proud of it, and he didn't even want to look at the nasty bushes anyway.

  Mr. Prinney was at his office in the village; Phoebe Twinkle was at her hat shop; Mrs. Prinney was supervising a two-day bake sale to raise money for a family in town who needed some help because the father of three children had run off to California. Chief Walker was working at his office at the jail. Mimi, who'd done an early morning blitz of cleaning, was visiting her dreadful aunts for the day.

  Even Lily was absent in a sense. Her dog Agatha had gone outside early in the day and rolled in a very dead animal and came back stinking to high heaven. Lily was bathing her.

  Robert went to the library with his lock picks and the somewhat blurry and badly spelled instructions. The library had a long sideboard on the left side of the room with locked bookshelves above. Nobody had ever been able to find a key to open them. So Robert started at the far left end. With a little practice, he managed to get one of the doors open. He took out a book titled The Biography of Leonard Spokes. It was the first one on the left of the bottom shelf.

  It looked hefty, but was surprisingly lightweight. He opened the book and stared with astonishment. It wasn't a real book. It was a box fIlled with ten-dollar bills.

  “Holy Toledo!" he said.

  He took out the next book, titled The Persian Wars. That one was filled with fIve-dollar bills.

  He put both books back and gently closed the door without relocking it, and galloped up the stairs to Lily's room. He knocked on the bathroom door.

  Lily called out, "Open the door, but you'll be sorry. Agatha found a long-dead animal in the woods and rolled in it.”

  The room stank and Lily had the window wide open and a little fan sitting on the sill blowing out the smell.

  Agatha was wrapped in a towel, looking terribly pleased with herself for gaining all this interest.

  “Lily, you must come down to the library to see what I discovered," Robert said, nearly yelling.

  “What?"

  “You must see it for yourself."

  “Take Agatha down to the kitchen to dry off and let me take a shower first. I smell almost as bad as she did."

  “Believe me, this can't wait. Someone might come home before you see what I found.”

  At least let me change my clothes and pin a scarf around my stinking hair.”

  With Agatha settled on a rug in front of the oven, he headed back to the library just as Lily descended the stairs. She followed him into the library. "So?" she asked.

  With a flourish, Robert opened the library door that concealed the books.

  “Good heavens! You found a key?"

  “Not exactly," Robert said. "Take out that book"—he pointed at it and went on—"titled The Biography of Leonard Stokes and open it.”

  Lily did so and almost yelped. "Money! Have you counted it?"

  “Not yet. Now open The Persian Wars."

  “Five-dollar bills. Robert, do you suppose that all of these books are fake and full of cash?"

  “One can only hope," Robert said, grinning like a madman.

  “We must tell Mr. Prinney about this. I wonder if he might have known all along. Maybe he has the key, come to think of it." She paused and said, "What did you mean when you said 'not exactly'?”

  Robert confessed. "I took a day off to go to New York—"

  “I remember that."

  “I bought a set of lock picks from a bum in Central Park."

  “Lock picks! Aren't they illegal?"

  “I didn't inquire," Robert said.

  “We must tell Mr. Prinney about this."

  “Why?"

  “Oh, Robert. Don't be silly. These fake books are part of Great-uncle Horatio's estate. Mr. Prinney is the executor. He must be informed.”

  Grudgingly, Robert admitted that she was right. "But do I have to admit to the lock picks?"

  “How else could you explain opening the door to the shelves?”

  They were interrupted by an extremely loud grinding noise from the front of the house. Lily yelped, "Put the books back, close the door, and hide the lock picks. Whatever is that racket?”

  Robert did as she asked and inadvertently closed the door to the shelves. Lily wasn't there to hear the expletive he voiced. Oh, well, he thought, I got it open once. I can do it again.
He followed Lily and discovered that it was the Harbinger boys. They were almost concealed behind the bushes in front of the mansion.

  “Yo!" Robert bellowed. The noise stopped and Harry came around carrying the scariest saw Robert had ever seen.

  “What is that thing?" Robert shouted.

  Harry turned off the machine. "What did you say?”

  “I asked what that is," Robert said.

  “It's my new Stihl gas-powered chain saw. This is the first time I've used it. Cuts through like a hot knife through butter," Harry said proudly.

  Harry's younger brother, Jim, came struggling through the prickly bush that remained. "Isn't that the bee's knees?" he asked.

  Robert considered telling the truth—that this was the most frightening gadget he'd ever seen.

  Harry was twenty-nine and two years older than his brother Jim, as well as being taller, sturdier, and smarter. Their father had been a general contractor and taught them how to roof, paint, make furniture, and a variety of other skills. But their dad warned them about doing electrical things. "Electricians get killed more often than any other trade," he said. "Still, rich or poor, there are always people needing repairs they don't know how to do."

  “So were the bushes diseased?" Lily asked, looking at the stumps. She hadn't joined the men until the noise had stopped.

  “No. But look up," Harry said.

  Both Lily and Robert did as he said. "There's a roof up at the top that overhangs the house," Lily said. "Is that what you're pointing out?"

  “Yes," Harry said. "They were dying of drought.”

  “But the bushes look ancient. How did they suddenly die of drought?"

  “Miss Brewster," Harry said very politely, "haven't you noticed how little rain we've had the last couple years?"

  “We never knew. We haven't been here for decades like some people in Voorburg," Robert said. Thinking this might have sounded surly, he amended, "I wish we had."

  “Why did you cut off all the branches and leave the trunks?" Lily asked.

  “Because we're going to take the trunks out by themselves," Harry said. "Hook them up to the truck with ropes and pull them out. We'll bring some gravel in for drainage when it starts to rain again. If you want new shrubs here, plant them farther away from the foundation so they get more water."